Renfrew Airport

Renfrew Airport was the domestic airport serving the city of Glasgow until it was decommissioned in 1966.

Renfrew Airport
IATA: none ICAO: none
Summary
Airport type	Domestic airport, defunct
Location	Renfrew, Renfrewshire
Opened	1914
Closed	1966
Coordinates	55°51′52″N 004°23′03″W
Map
Renfrew Airport Location of Renfrew Airport in Renfrewshire
Runways
Direction Length Surface ft m 08/26 5,787 1,764 Paved surface 03/21 3,839 1,170 Paved surface
Source of data: UK Airfield Guide [1]

It was located in the Newmains area of Renfrew, approximately 2 kilometres east of the current airport which would later replace it. It consisted of a main terminal building and ancillary buildings, and a main runway which ran west south-west of the terminal.

"Map of Air Routes and Landing Places in Great Britain, as temporarily arranged by the Air Ministry for civilian flying", published in 1919, showing Castle Bromwich as a "military and civil station".

Military use

Already in existence as a military facility during the First World War, it first handled scheduled flights in 1933 with the first regular destination being Campbeltown. During the Second World War it served as RAF Renfrew.

The following units were here at some point:^[2]

• No. 6 (Glasgow) Aircraft Acceptance Park (1918) became No. 6 (Renfrew) Aircraft Acceptance Park (1918–20)^[3]
• No. 6 (Scottish) Aircraft Repair Depot (1918-?)^[4]
• No. 55 Squadron RAF
• No. 80 Squadron RAF
• No. 309 Squadron RAF
• No. 602 Squadron RAF
• No. 666 Squadron RAF
• 823 Naval Air Squadron
• 1831 Naval Air Squadron

Post war

Despite the construction of a new terminal building (with a parabola arch) in 1954, it became evident that the airport was unable to cope with the increasing demands for domestic air travel in the 1960s. The final departure took place on 2 May 1966 – its destination being the new Glasgow Airport a few hundred metres away.

The site is now occupied by a Tesco supermarket and the M8 motorway; this straight and level section of motorway occupies the site of the runway.^[5] Opened in March 1968, the M8 connected the new Glasgow Airport to Bishopton in the west and Glasgow city centre (via Hillington) in the east. The entire airport was demolished in 1978. Arkleston Primary School (1972) and a Tesco superstore (1980) were built on the former terminal site, and the whole of the surrounding area is now covered with housing.

The only trace left of the airport is the Flying Scotsman pub which was the Hertz car rental building, opposite the terminal building.

Services

The airport was served by airlines such as Scottish Airlines, Aer Lingus, Railway Air Services and British European Airways, for destinations in Scotland and London.^[6]

Icelandair offered flights to Iceland and a number of destinations in Europe.^[7] Other airlines offering international flights were Dan-Air, Sabena and LOT Polish Airlines.

Statistics

The airport handled 138,146 passengers in its first year of operations. By the end of the decade, the airport was handling more than half a million passengers annually; one million passengers passed through the airport for the first time in the year 1964. In the year of the airport's closure, it handled 1.4 million passengers.^[8]

Year	Number of Passengers[9]	% Change
1950	138,146
1951	139,599	1
1952	156,916	12.4
1953	210,023	33.8
1954	258,481	23.1
1955	305,574	18.2
1956	373,948	22.4
1957	436,561	16.7
1958	443,481	1.6
1959	528,682	19.2
1960	652,180	23.4
1961	741,398	13.7
1962	854,988	15.3
1963	996,264	16.5
1964	1,150,506	15.8
1965	1,240,066	7.8
1966	1,406,879	13.5

1^ combined with the new Glasgow Airport

In fiction

The airport features briefly in the second novel of a space opera series by Angus MacVicar, Return to the Lost Planet. One of the characters is about to fly back from Scotland to Berlin, but the hero and his companion join him at the last minute on the bus from St. Enoch, Glasgow, to the airport, and persuade him to stay and help them.

References

Notes

1. "Renfrew - UK Airfield Guide".
2. "Renfrew (Glasgow) (Moorpark)". Airfields of Britain Conservation Trust. Retrieved 4 October 2022.
3. Sturtivant, Hamlin & Halley 1997, p. 47.
4. Sturtivant, Hamlin & Halley 1997, p. 50.
5. Smith, Renfrew
6. "Glasgow Airport: A Brief History – Renfrew Airport". Archived from the original on 1 August 2009. Retrieved 23 December 2008.
7. McCloskey, Keith. Glasgow's Airports: Renfrew and Abbotsinch. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press Ltd., 2009.
8. McCloskey, Keith. Glasgow's Airports: Renfrew and Abbotsinch. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press Ltd., 2009
9. McCloskey, Keith. Glasgow's Airports: Renfrew and Abbotsinch. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press Ltd., 2009

Bibliography

• McCloskey, Keith. Glasgow's Airports: Renfrew and Abbotsinch. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press Ltd., 2009. ISBN 978-0-7524-5077-3.
• McCloskey, Keith. From the Blitz to University Flying: Essays on Glasgow's Aviation History. Published on Amazon., 2019. ISBN 978 1706079569.
• Smith, David J. Action Stations, Volume 7: Military airfields of Scotland, the North-East and Northern Ireland. Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, UK: Patrick Stephens Ltd., 1983 ISBN 0-85059-563-0.
• Sturtivant, R.; Hamlin, J.; Halley, J. (1997). Royal Air Force flying training and support units. UK: Air-Britain (Historians). ISBN 0-85130-252-1.

External links

• Brief history of Renfrew Airport